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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (9407)	11/6/1999 2:24:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12475

Indian high tech firms eye Nasdaq listing -Forbes By Om Malik NEW YORK. 3:40 PM EST-NEW DELHI, India. Wall Street has become a preferred destination for Indian corporations, whether they are established public sector companies going public or a new breed of technology companies. The spectacular success of two technology companies, Infosys Technologies (nasdaq: INFY) and Satyam Infoway (nasdaq: SIFY), has given Indian chief financial officers confidence that U.S. investors are ready for Indian stock. In addition, many companies feel that the strong rally in the U.S. markets and the investor sophistication and taste for higher valuation stocks makes New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq a better option than the London Stock Exchange. Until recently, Indian companies had to resort to selling Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs) in London and Europe. The GDR market is not very liquid and has poor retail investor participation. As result the Indian GDRs rarely get good premiums, making them less attractive to the mutual funds and other large institutions. One of the most recent beneficiaries of bullishness on the Big Board is public-sector industrial bank ICICI (nyse: IC). ICICI is the second Asian bank to list on the NYSE after Japan's Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi (nyse: MBK).On day one of trading, nearly 30% of the trades in ICICI came from retail investors. The ICICI American Depositary Receipt (ADR) issue helped the New Delhi, India-based company sells ADRs worth $315 million, with each ADR representing five shares of ICICI that are traded on the Bombay Stock Exchange in India. Amit Chandra, cohead of Investment Banking at DSP Merrill Lynch in Bombay, predicts that several Indian companies will tap the U.S. markets within the next six months, including state-owned telecom operator Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited and Housing Finance Development Corp. Bank, the Indian version of Fannie Mae. These two companies are seeking a listing on the NYSE. Expect names like Bombay-based television software company Zee Telefilms, petrochemical giant Reliance Industries and software developer HCL Technologies to show up on your NYSE trading screens. The Nasdaq market is proving to be attractive to Indian technology companies, analysts in India said. There are at least a dozen software and biotechnology companies eyeing the Nasdaq, including the Indian-version of Pixar, Pentafour Software and Exports. Another company to keep an eye on is Rediff.com, a Bombay-based Internet portal. The company, similar to HotBot in the U.S., has attracted investments from the likes of Intel (nasdaq: INTC). Likewise, venture capital firm Weiss Peck & Greer is looking for an initial public offering and hopes to get listed on the Nasdaq exchange. forbes.com